Farmers' Future Rests on
“Permanent" Beds

Many Asian farmers are under strong pressure to reduce costs and further intensify and diversify production—but are they stretching agriculture to the breaking point? “Permanent” bed planting helps farmers achieve their goals without depleting soil and water.

“Ken Sayre left India disappointed in March 2000 and said he would not come back until a lot more was happening with bed planting,” recalls Raj Gupta, regional facilitator of the Rice-Wheat Consortium. He then cheerily notes that Sayre, head of crop management in CIMMYT’s Wheat Program and a tireless proponent of conservation agriculture, returned in July 2003 and was not disappointed. Farmers are now experimenting extensively with bed planting, especially to reduce costs and diversify their mix of crops (see"Conservation a Necessity, Not a Luxury, for Poorest Farmers")

Bed basics

In the bed planting system refined by Sayre, wheat (or another appropriate crop) is planted on raised beds that typically vary from 65 to 90 centimeters in width, with 2 to 3 rows per bed. After the harvest, most farmers remove or incorporate crop residues, destroy the beds by tilling the soil, and make the beds again before planting the next crop. Now, new implements have been developed, and farmers who grow crops on beds can simply reshape the beds before planting the next crop and retain all or part of the crop residues on the surface. This practice is referred to as “permanent bed planting.”

Bed planting has numerous benefits, not the least of which is a 30% reduction in production costs through more timely sowing, a 20–40% reduction in irrigation water (compared to flood irrigation), fewer tractor passes, more efficient use of fertilizer, and lower seed planting rates that produce yields equal to or greater than yields obtained under traditional tillage systems. Of long-term import, bed planting, particularly on permanent beds, is environmentally friendly: it improves soil fertility and structure, reduces erosion and water requirements, and facilitates mechanical and manual weeding, which reduces herbicide applications.

The components of the system are not new. Bed planting of wheat was practiced to varying degrees for years in the Yaqui Valley of Mexico. Building on this practice, in the early 1990s CIMMYT scientists worked with Valley farmers to develop the new, permanent bed planting system that integrated raised beds with residue retention, reduced tillage, and irrigation in the furrows between the beds. Farmers in the Valley are adopting permanent bed planting as appropriate implements become commercially available. The tremendous benefits of bed planting, combined with its ready adoption by Mexican wheat farmers, led CIMMYT to pursue its use in other areas.

Options for Asia

Farmers in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan value the flexibility that bed planting offers for crop rotations and intercropping. They benefit from higher profits and better nutrition by planting high-value crops such as mung bean, potato, pulses, and maize within the system. The development of appropriate rice varieties for transplanting or seeding directly into beds should give farmers even more options and opportunities.

China is also moving ahead with the technology. Shortages of irrigation water from the Yellow River have greatly reduced the area planted to rice and even caused farmers to abandon fields. Given water savings of 30–45%, China’s interest in bed planting is not surprising. Sayre has been working with Chinese scientists in four locations in the Yellow River basin to test and extend bed planting. In the province of Shandong, bed planting has grown from a few test plots in 1998 to more than 26,000 hectares today. With two CIMMYT projects being developed under the CGIAR Challenge Program for Water and Food, there is reason to believe that bed planting will reach other parts of this critically important river basin.

Seeing impact from the Yellow River basin to the Indo-Gangetic Plains has given Sayre a new take on whether bed planting in Asia is taking off: “Our Asian colleagues have really initiated big changes. I look forward to working with them to refine bed planting systems, especially for smallscale farmers, who can easily get left behind in the race to intensify production. I won’t say it will be easy—but it’s not impossible.”

For more information: 

 

Top Contents Next story

February, 2004